


the working theory

by TolkienGirl



Category: White Collar
Genre: Character Study, Ever - Freeform, Gen, No Slash, Non-Linear Narrative, Spoilers for all seasons, a little tribute to the end of a great show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7881289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is and he isn't. (Or, all the things that make Neal Caffrey.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the working theory

He’s a smile. No one’s ever doubted that. But anyone who knows him at all knows that he’s more than that.

The few who know him well know to look for what comes before and after the smile. But those are split-seconds, quicker than a wink—and too often, a wink is all he needs.

 

Keller saw a chess piece, and so, in the end, did Kate. So did Fowler, so did Adler—chess is a beautiful game, all parquet and polished ivory, mirrors in the dark—but it is very cold.

And Neal? He is and he isn’t.

 

Neal Caffrey is magic, plain and simple, except that there is nothing plain about the magician’s flourish, nothing simple about the collective gasp that hangs in the balance between the flash of light and the sudden disappearance.

 _What_ disappears is what matters, not _how_. But style over substance is the brand he bears from everyone he meets.

 _Almost_ everyone.

 

Elizabeth took one look at Neal and saw the little boy behind his eyes. He is and he isn’t, but she has held onto that from the beginning and so, though she may not anticipate every chess move of his mind, she has always known how to read his heart.

 

Mozzie trusts Neal, because he is Neal. In part, at least. Mozzie may not have the flourish—the blinding smile that answers questions before they’re asked—but Neal and Mozzie are both set apart from the world, and always have been. Something handed them the strings, and taught them how to pull.

No one told them that the other side pulls too, that strings get tangled and you cannot let them go.

Being set apart is not always a gift.

It is and it isn’t.

 

If he were a sword, he’d be a rapier. If he were free, he wouldn’t quite be happy. But no one asks, and he doesn’t answer, and it’s always, always been about where one chooses to end the story.

 

Peter Burke knew Neal first as a problem to be solved, then as an equation to be applied, and then as nothing like math at all except that in subtraction, he felt the loss of friend.

At last, Peter left mathematics behind, kept the friend, and let him go.

 

He’s free, Peter hopes, and happy. He hopes—and yet, he knows that, as always, Neal is and he isn’t.

(But that’s why the story isn’t over yet.)


End file.
